Comment by awesomekling
8 months ago
Thanks F3nd0! There are currently no plans to switch to a less permissive license.
And we're perfectly happy using proprietary services like GitHub and Discord as long as they make our work easier and more enjoyable. We recently evaluated a number of alternatives, and found that they all introduced more friction than we were comfortable with.
Although the task of building a browser is itself challenging, we're a pragmatic project :)
> There are currently no plans to switch to a less permissive license.
Hey, just a reality check: in the event that you actually do become wildly successful, this means that others (Google, Microsoft, etc.) will be able to fork the browser and then develop it faster than you - thus leaving you behind and taking away your users! Would highly recommend leaving yourself some mechanism to prevent that, unless you're really okay with the project defeating itself through its own success.
Yes, we are aware of how permissive licenses work.
If someone forks our code and does a better job with it than we do, fair game. :)
Note they won't have to do a better job in the long run, just a good enough job in the short run to leave you behind. But yeah, as long as you're keeping this in mind :) best of luck!
1 reply →
Just so you know, chromium exists now as an open source project because KDE developers used GPL.
19 replies →
But if they embrace, extend and extinguish, in a way that harms your users' freedom, that would not IMO be a good outcome.
6 replies →
Reality check:
1. All the BSDs have been out there for decades without anyone running with it.
2. Google and Microsoft - while being a shadow of their former selves technically - are probably still very capable of reimplementing whatever they want.
3. If Ladybird gets so wildly popular, lets celebrate wildly!
You wouldn't count OSX as someone running with BSD?
7 replies →
Cisco's OS is a fork of BSD.
4 replies →
> Hey, just a reality check:
It's rather condescending of you to assume that the developers of Ladybird aren't fully aware of the consequences that their choice of license entails.
That certainly wasn't the intention. Was there really a need to turn this into a personal swipe? This is a common outcome many smart and talented developers have historically come to regret. You can find their stories all over the web, including right here on HN. I didn't want to see the same thing happen here, is all.
6 replies →
KHTML was the basis for Chrome and Safari. A valid concern
Chrome in itself is not the problem. Competition is good. Firefox is better now thanks to Chrome.
Neither is Safari. Safari is actually part of the solution. Safari has saved Firefox and other browsers by being the only option on iOS for a long time and a better choice for many (because of battery usage) on Mac OS. Without Safari I am afraid we would all be locked into Chrome now.
The problem is that Google, like Microsoft before them,
1. used their dominant position in one market to force their way into dominating another market,
2. used various underhanded tactics to make users think Chrome were better while in reality it was just given better treatment by their backend servers and also the Googles frontend devs[1]
3. and that unlike Microsoft they still haven't got a multi billion fine for it and haven't been forced to advertise alternative browsers for months.
[1]: see various bugs[2] in everything from the core of the Angular framework to Google Calendar to YouTube
[2]: yes, I am generous enough to consider them bugs. I am fairly certain though that bugs that doesn't affect Chrome aren't exactly considered top priority.
18 replies →
WebKit is still an open project as is Blink. Why would this be concerning?
1 reply →
Was KHTML not GPL?
How is MIT any worse at preventing this, when GPL didn't?
2 replies →
"Better" is a subjective term. I would probably stay on OG Ladybird if it meant MS/Google-ified LB starts screenshotting/OCRing/Uploading/LLMing all the data, even if it were to become faster and more slick.
Slow computing it's sometimes called [0]
I sometimes experience some friction (really acceptable though) on Firefox, it has never lured me to Edge of Chrome. Some people have standards you know ;)
[0] https://www.slowcomputingbook.com/
think I'll get me this book. Thx
> will be able to fork the browser and then develop it faster than you - thus leaving you behind and taking away your users
So, that fetish for infinite growth... can we get rid of it?
Firefox keeps trying to grow in various directions and look where it's taking them.
They’re backed by Shopify. If Google or Microsoft forked it that would probably be the best thing they could hope for.
> (...) switch to a less permissive license.
License "permissiveness" is a relative concept. From the point of view of the users of your software, the GPL is more permissive than MIT, since they have permission to see the source code. If you release software under MIT or BSD licenses, you allow middlemen to strip this right to users of your software.
> you allow middlemen to strip this right to users of your software.
That's not true.
Somebody can take the source code and build something closed on top of it, but the original code will be already free, and you will always have the right to see it.
For example, PlayStation OS is based on FreeBSD (AFAIK). They took it, adapted it and added a lot of stuff. Did you lose the right to see the source code of FreeBSD ? No. Can you see the source code of PlayStation OS ? No, but you never had that right, so you have not been stripped of anything.
GP is clearly talking about this is the same context that the GPL does. This is a decades-long running debate and it isn't as simple as you and the sibling commenters are trying to make it.
Of course it doesn't change the original project. But when people take the codebase and build a new product on it, what GP says is absolutely the case. The devs can withhold all code and rights to it from the next user. This is most commonly an issue when it comes to libraries rather than end products, but not always.
It doesn't also have to mean that the original project dies or disappears, it can just rob from their growth potential. Examples are quite easy to find. There's been a big hullaballoo over cloud providers taking open source projects and competing with them by offering managed versions of the service that are well-integrated into their ecosystems. Economically this is also a problem because the cloud provider can then undercut the price of the managed service compared to the official one since they aren't bearing the burden of building/maintaining the codebase.
I'm by no means against "permissive" licensing (MIT, etc), I think they have their time and place just like GPL, etc, but I am against dismissing valid concerns with shallow replies.
2 replies →
Is a PlayStation user a FreeBSD user? Yes, clearly. Can he see the source code of the FreeBSD derivative he is using? No, obviously not. Did FreeBSD make this possible? Yes, obviously.
Well, with MIT, you can make your own (A)GPL fork of you like and carry on. Best of luck.
> If you release software under MIT or BSD licenses, you allow middlemen to strip this right to users of your software.
No you don't. You're being extremely disingenuous with this phrasing. No matter how many other parties take the source code and make a closed source product out of it, the users of your software will always have the same rights you granted them to begin with. No freedom has been lost.
And before you say "but your users won't have the same rights to the derivative works", that isn't a loss of freedom. They never had those rights to begin with, therefore they cannot lose them. Not gaining something is not the same as losing it.
That is a complete nonsensical claim & willful attempt at spreading misinformation:
Permissive licenses doesn't grants you less freedom than GPL, infact it grants you more because the user also has the freedom to modify source code without being enforced to make it public.
Companies copying the codebase to their propietary ones won't automatically strip right of users, licenses don't work like that, the original codebase will still be fine. Whether said companies will contribute back is irrelevant.
You can copy GPL code, modify it and use it personally and nobody is going to care unless you’re making tons of money. The entities pushing for MIT style licensing are massive and for profit.
2 replies →
[flagged]
6 replies →
I think permissive here is a technical term, and is being used correctly from a legal perspective as far as I understand although I am not a lawyer. The GPL is less permissive than a BSD or MIT license because it places more restrictions on the licensee. This is a legal fact and not a matter of spin.
Don’t spread FUD please. Middlemen can’t change Ladybird’s license or prevent anyone from seeing its source code.
I know that’s not what you meant, but it is what you said.
If you look at the parent comment directly above in the hierarchy, it is pretty clear that they are talking about a company coming in and taking it, adding stuff to it, and calling it their own browser. I think you have to try pretty hard to read in that GP is saying that the original source code license would be changed.
Less permissive licenses protect users more.
https://gavinhoward.com/2023/12/is-source-available-really-t...